Jessie__1_I

I once had a professor who would open the first day of his classes every single semester with a story about a group of cavemen sitting around a fire telling each other about the day's hunt. Out of the darkness a single figure lumbers through the cave door. It is Ook, he is neither the strongest nor the largest of the caveman. He doesn't track animals or fish any better or worse than the rest of the pack. He is as unremarkable as a caveman can be. But on this night Ook drags the carcass of some animal to the mouth of the cave and leaves it there. He is bruised and battered and covered with blood. The rest of the pack is curious and they make space for Ook around the fire. He begins to tell them of walking through the forest, tracking a deer for their supper. He tells of the long, hot hours under the canopy of trees spent waiting, spear at the ready, for that moment when his prey walks into his line of sight. He tells of the moment he realizes that he is not the only one tracking their supper in the forest.

Everyone waits for Ook to go on. Clearly something has happened, something big. Ook is covered in mud and blood and bits of fur and that is certainly not a deer laying at the mouth of the cave. Ook covers the distance to mysterious pile in a few long strides. He whispers from the shadows about the moment he turned and saw...

All of a sudden a massive lion jumps from the shadows roaring to the heavens. The group cries out and scatters and a few brave souls grasp for their spears. Then the lion starts to laugh and he shakes off his fur. The cavemen all stare in amazement, it is no lion, it's Ook. He's just become the first storyteller. From that point on Ook's arrival back at the fire every night was something to look forward to because he always brought some interesting tale. And every once in a while they would be able to convince Ook to pull on the old lion skin and tell his story. And even though they all knew the end, they still huddled in anticipation when Ook disappeared into the shadows and cried out when he leaped forward roaring. They had become the first audience.

To sit here and type the story doesn't even begin to do it justice. I heard this story maybe a half dozen times in the few years this professor was here, as did a lot of other students in the theatre department. But we were up on the edge of our seats every - single - time waiting for him to jump up in front of us pretending to be Ook pretending to be the lion. He could have sat in front of us and told us how important storytelling is and how if we really are dedicated to our craft people will come back for more time and time again. He could have told us a lot of things, but he didn't, he showed us with some of the best stories I have ever heard.

What I'm trying to say is that storytelling is a skill, we all should know that by now. But it's a skill that has to be practiced and thought upon if it's going to get anywhere beyond the weekend recap at the watercooler stage. Breaking the process of telling stories down into categories and processes could completely rob all of the fun from storytelling, but in our text the use of stories to teach about storytelling just gives us more stories to draw examples from. So, yeah, I guess that's it for my big idea for the week.

P.s. did anyone else notice that the subtitle on the front of the book is different from the subtitle on the title page inside the book? I borrowed the first edition of this book from Chesebro a year ago and it was like that then. I was sort of hoping they would have fixed it for the second edition, it's sort of driving me up the wall.